Creating an Intranet in Small Business Server 2008

	Creating an Intranet in Windows Small Business Server 2008

Introduction

An intranet is a web site that is used internally in a company. It has all the characteristics and features of a normal web site, except that it is not accessed on the World Wide Web (www), that is, the intranet is not accessible outside the company's network.

If you install Microsoft Windows Server 2008 or Windows Small Business Server 2008, it automatically creates an intranet web site for you. you can even enhance the whole thing if you install Microsoft SharePoint. To be cheap, we will review the intranet of a Windows Small Business Server.

When you have installed Windows Small Business Server 2008, it automatically creates an internal web site for its network. In reality, any company that joins the domain also has its own web site, which makes it possible to make some of its contents available to the other computers of the same network. You can then customize any of the web sites of your intranet.

Accessing an Intranet Site

The first thing you should know is how to access one of the web sites of the intranet. You should first know the name of your domain. When you install Microsoft Windows Server 2008, at one time you are asked to provide a name for the domain. The name you give is appended .local. For example, if you create a domain named functionx, it complete name becomes functionx.local.

To access the web site hosted on a computer, you must use the name of that computer. To access a site, open a browser. In the address bar, set the address as

http://ComputerName.DomainName.local

For example, if you have a computer named central that belongs to a domain named functionx.local, you can access its intranet site with:

http://central.functionx.local

YThe default intranet site of a computer displays the default page of IIS7:

Intranet

Customizing an Intranet Site

Of course, the default web page of an intranet site is boring. To make it useful, you must customize it. To start, you must locate the folder that holds the primary files of the site. To do this, use a file utility such as Windows Explorer. Normally, the web site is at C:\Inetpub\wwwroot. Probably the first thing to do would consist of creating the home page. To do this, open a text editor such as Notepad and type the necessary HTML code in i. Here is an example:

<html>
<head>
<title>Bethesda Car Rental</title>
</head>

<body>

<h2>Bethesda Car Rental</h2>

<p>Welcome to Bethesda Car Rental</p>

</body>
</html>

Save the file as index.htm (or index.html, or default.htm, or default.html; there are a few other names you can use) in the C:\Inetpub\wwwroot folder. That's it| Once you access the computer using its address in the browser, its home page would display. Here is an example:

Browser

Creating an Intranet Web Site

Probably the most important web site of your network will reside on one of your servers. If your network includes many computers, you can distribute the web site on many folders from different web sites. Still, the simplests site for a small business would bee hosted on one server.

As mentioned already, the web site is in the C:\Inetpub\wwwroot folder. The person who work on the web site should have access to that folder and should have administrative rights on that folder. For example, he or she must be able to create sub-folders, delete sub-folders, and perform other necessary file operations. For example, if you are the webmaster, you can create the necessary files in the root folder. You can also create a sub-folder named images in which you would put the necessary pictures.

For example, we are using a file named index.htm and another file named bcr.css added to the C:\Inetpub\wwwroot folder. We also use a sub-folder named images:

Browser

The images sub-folder contains the pictures of the web site. Once the files have been created or added, the web site is ready:

Browser

It is that simple. Of course, there are many other things you can do either to customize the intranet or to create additional web sites, but the ideas here give you a foundation.